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Warehouses Get Smarter

Tools for traceability and increased speed, efficiency, and profit

Another development by Marco, part of the company’s Yield Control Module system, is known as the “One Light – One Fruit” display which Hart says can “significantly increase line speeds for manual packing, especially for table grapes and tomatoes.”

The monitor shows workers how much more fruit is needed to fill a designated container. These technologies and others “provide easy-to-use packing stations with simple operator interfaces and real-time data to provide effective solutions for all of these challenges,” she says.

Shipping
Temperature monitoring technologies are another key to traceability, and this is one of the first things produce companies look to upgrade. “Right now, the easiest and most basic thing for fresh produce is anything having to do with maintaining and monitoring the cold chain,” Mandel emphasizes. “It is vital when dealing with highly perishable goods.”

This could be as simple as retrofitting older warehouses to refrigerate open docks, as much can happen in the 15 to 20-feet from the end of the truck to the refrigerated area—which has repercussions for both inbound and outbound produce. There are also improvements with temperature recorders.

Mandel says new tools not only monitor temperature and humidity, but can be coupled with GPS, so you can see exactly where a truck is located. In the event there’s an issue with temperature along the way, you can divert the load and offload problem pallets, or make sure the product is sold quicker than it otherwise might have if the cold chain had not been monitored or maintained.”

Inventory
Redline Solutions in Santa Clara, CA, has seen strong growth in cooler automation over the last year, says Todd Baggett, chief executive officer. “Produce companies are realizing the value of automating traditional paper and pencil inventory and order fulfillment systems. By assigning bar codes to pallets and locations,” he explains, software programs can manage “pallet contents, inventory movements, order fulfillment, and shipping.”

The use of ‘rugged’ laptops and scanners has also made life easier in cold storage areas or out in the field. The U.S. Department of Agriculture uses laptops able to withstand extreme temperatures and breakage, while a variety of hand-held devices are now resistant to water, temperature extremes, and nearly unbreakable.

“By using interactive, rugged barcode scanners, companies are able to instantly update inventory information,” Baggett says. With such real-time inventory capabilities, “Pallets are validated as they are staged or shipped,” he adds, and “errors are caught and corrected before the product is moved. This saves a tremendous amount of time, and typically boosts productivity by 25 percent in week one.”

Implementing Big Tech Changes
Wood’s Produce Company is transitioning to a new warehouse management system “that will utilize wrist-mounted computers and bar code scanners to manage inventory, pick orders, and ensure our traceability is top-notch,” says Wood. “Not only is the software helping us make fewer mistakes, have less waste, and bolster food safety and traceability, but advanced technology is allowing us to offer better, more personalized service to many more customers than we could before.”

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